Manage your subscription

Mischief and fraud in the crowdsourced workforce

By Jim Giles and Zena Iovino

Once seen as a triumph, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk has proved susceptible to dubious deals

USER reviews have generally been good for Squibble, an app created by Canadian software firm MassHabit. Last month, for example, a post on the website MacRumours complimented its “great graphics” and “addictive gameplay”. “I just tried the best game from the appstore!” wrote a Squibble fan on another site.

Glowing praise, indeed. But the sheen comes off the reviews when you find out that MassHabit appears to have paid for some of them. In a job advert placed last …